The invention relates to a process for extracting triterpene glycosides from plant or botanical sources.
Triterpene glycosides are non-caloric and are intensely sweet. For this reason, triterpene glycosides are very attractive for use as a sweetening agent in dietary and food industries.
Plant or botanical sources exist for obtaining triterpene glycosides such as mogroside V. One particularly good sources of triterpene glycoside is cucurbitaceae fruit, fructus mormordicae or momordica grosvenori, which is also widely known as Lo Han Kuo. This plant itself is widely and popularly consumed as a food for a wide variety of health purposes such as stomach distress, sore throat, cough, diarrhea, constipation, etc. However, this fruit also contains bitter tasting compounds, which to date are not specifically identified to the knowledge of the present inventors, which interfere with use of the fruit or simple extract of the fruit as a sweetening agent.
One laboratory extraction process was developed and published by Tsunematsu Takemoto et al. The Takemoto et al. process, however, is only applicable to roasted dry material from the fruit. In addition, the Takemoto et al. process is rather complicated, provides low yield, and is not practical or economical on an industrial scale.
Another disclosed process is set forth in CN 1019935. In this process, fruit juice is obtained directly from momordica grosvenori, with no provision for removal of bitter-tasting materials. Thus, the process disclosed in CN 1019935 can only produce crude triterpene glycoside-containing material which also contains bitter components and which is not suitable for industrial scale manufacture or use as a sweetener.
It is therefore the primary object of the present invention to provide a process whereby triterpene glycosides can be extracted from plant or botanical sources such as momordica grosvenori with a very high yield, and without including bitter-tasting components in the final product.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such process which is simple, efficient, consistent and economic.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide such a process which can be carried out using fresh fruit, thereby completely avoiding the need for fruit drying processes.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a process which does not involve the use of excessive amounts of organic or inorganic chemicals and the like.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will appear hereinbelow.